AUTHOR OF"THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL""THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE""STORIES OF OLD NEW SPAIN" ETC.

* * * * *

1898

TO

C.A.J.

CONTENTS

I. I PAY FOR MY PASSAGE TO LOANGO II. HOW I BOARDED THE BRIG _GOLDEN HIND_ III. I HAVE A SCARE, AND GET OVER IT IV. CAPTAIN LUKE MAKES ME AN OFFER V. I GIVE CAPTAIN LUKE MY ANSWER VI. I TIE UP MY BROKEN HEAD, AND TRY TO ATTRACT ATTENTION VII. I ENCOUNTER A GOOD DOCTOR AND A VIOLENT GALE VIII. THE _HURST CASTLE_ IS DONE FOR IX. ON THE EDGE OF THE SARGASSO SEA X. I TAKE A CHEERFUL VIEW OF A BAD SITUATION XI. MY GOOD SPIRITS ARE WRUNG OUT OF ME XII. I HAVE A FEVER AND SEE VISIONS XIII. I HEAR A STRANGE CRY IN THE NIGHT XIV. OF MY MEETING WITH A MURDERED MAN XV. I HAVE SOME TALK WITH A MURDERER XVI. I RID MYSELF OF TWO DEAD MEN XVII. HOW I WALKED MYSELF INTO A MAZE XVIII. I FIND THE KEY TO A SEA MYSTERY XIX. OF A GOOD PLAN THAT WENT WRONG WITH ME XX. HOW I SPENT A NIGHT WEARILY XXI. MY THIRST IS QUENCHED, AND I FIND A COMPASS XXII. I GET SOME FOOD IN ME, AND FORM A CRAZY PLAN XXIII. HOW I STARTED ON A JOURNEY DUE NORTH XXIV. OF WHAT I FOUND ABOARD A SPANISH GALLEON XXV. I AM THE MASTER OF A GREAT TREASURE XXVI. OF A STRANGE SIGHT THAT I SAW IN THE NIGHT-TIME XXVII. I SET MYSELF TO A HEAVY TASK XXVIII. HOW I RUBBED SHOULDERS WITH DESPAIR XXIX. I GET INTO A SEA CHARNEL-HOUSE XXX. I COME TO THE WALL OF MY SEA-PRISON XXXI. HOW HOPE DIED OUT OF MY HEART XXXII. I FALL IN WITH A FELLOW-PRISONER XXXIII. I MAKE A GLAD DISCOVERY XXXIV. I END A GOOD JOB WELL, AND GET A SET-BACK XXXV. I AM READY FOR A FRESH HAZARD OF FORTUNE XXXVI. HOW MY CAT PROMISED ME GOOD LUCK XXXVII. HOW MY CAT STILL FURTHER CHEERED ME XXXVIII. HOW I FOUGHT MY WAY THROUGH THE SARGASSO WEED XXXIX. WHY MY CAT CALLED OUT TO ME

IN THE SARGASSO SEA

I

I PAY FOR MY PASSAGE TO LOANGO

Captain Luke Chilton counted over the five-dollar notes with a greatercare than I thought was necessary, considering that there were onlyten of them; and cautiously examined each separate one, as though hefeared that I might be trying to pay for my passage in bad money. Hisshow of distrust set my back up, and I came near to damning him rightout for his impudence--until I reflected that a West Coast trader mustpretty well divide his time between cheating people and seeing to itthat he isn't cheated, and so held my tongue.

Having satisfied himself that the tale was correct and that the noteswere genuine, he brought out from the inside pocket of his long-tailedshore-going coat a big canvas pocket-book, into which he stowed themlengthwise; and from the glimpse I had of it I fancied that until mymoney got there it was about bare. As he put away the pocket-book, hesaid, and pleasantly enough:

"You see, Mr. Stetworth, it's this way: fifty dollars is dirt cheapfor a cast across from New York to the Coast, and that's a fact; butyou say that it's an object with you to get your passage low, and Isay that even at that price I can make money out of you. The _GoldenHind_ has got to call at Loango, anyhow; there's a spare room in hercabin that'll be empty if you don't fill it; and while you're a bigman and look to be rather extra hearty, I reckon you won't eat more'nabout twenty dollars' worth of victuals--counting 'em at cost--on thewhole run. But the main thing is that I want all the spot cash I canget a-holt of before I start. Fifty dollars' worth of trade laid innow means five hundred dollars for me when I get back here in New Yorkwith what I've turned it over for on the Coast. So, you see, if you'resuited, I'm suited too. Shake! And now we'll have another drink. Thistime it's on me."

We shook, and Captain Luke gave me an honest enough grip, just as hehad spoken in an honest enough tone. I knew, of course, that in ageneral way he must be a good deal of a rascal--he couldn't well be aWest Coast trader and be anything else; but then his rascality ingeneral didn't matter much so long as his dealings with me weresquare. He called the waiter and ordered arrack again--it was themost wholesome drink in the world, he said--and we touched glasses,and so brought our deal to an end.

That a cheap passage to Loango was an object to me, as Captain Lukehad said, was quite true. It was a very important object. After I gotacross, of course, and my pay from the palm-oil people began, I wouldbe all right; but until I could touch my salary I had to sail mightyclose to the wind. For pretty much all of my capital consisted of myheadful of knowledge of the theory and practice of mechanicalengineering which had brought me out first of my class at the StevensInstitute--and in that way had got me the offer from the palm-oilpeople--and because of which I thought that there wasn't anybody quitemy equal anywhere as a mechanical engineer. And that was only natural,I suppose, since my passing first had swelled my head a bit, and I wasonly three-and-twenty, and more or less of a promiscuously greenyoung fool.

As I looked over Captain Luke's shoulder, while we supped our arracktogether--out through the window across the rush and bustle of SouthStreet--and saw a trim steamer of the Maracaibo line lying at herdock, I could not but be sorry that my voyage to Africa would be madeunder sails. But, on the other hand, I comforted myself by thinkingthat if the _Golden Hind_ were half the clipper her captain made herout to be I should not lose much time--taking into account theroundabout way I should have to go if I went under steam. And Icomforted myself still more by thinking what a lot of money I hadsaved by coming on this chance for a cheap cast across; and I blessedmy lucky stars for putting into my head the notion of cruising alongSouth Street that October morning and asking every sailor-like man Imet if he knew of a craft bound for the West Coast--and especially forhaving run me up against Captain Luke Chilton before my cruise hadlasted an hour.

The captain looked at his glass so sorrowfully when it was empty thatI begged him to have it filled again, and he did. But he took down hisarrack this time at a single gulp, and then got up briskly and saidthat he must be off.

"We don't sail till to-morrow afternoon, on the half flood, Mr.Stetworth," he said, "so you'll have lots of time to get your trapsaboard if you'll take a boat off from the Battery about noon. Iwouldn't come earlier than that, if I were you. Things are bound to bein a mess aboard the brig to-morrow, and the less you have of it thebetter. We lie well down the anchorage, you know, only a little thisside of Robbin's Reef. Your boatmen will know the place, and they'llfind the brig for you if you'll tell 'em where to look for her andthat she's painted green. Well, so long." And then Captain Luke shookhands with me again, and so was off into the South Street crowd.

I hurried away too. My general outfit was bought and packed; but thethings lying around my lodgings had to be got together, and I had tobuy a few articles in the way of sea-stock for my voyage in a sailingvessel that I should not have needed had I gone by the regular steamlines. So I got some lunch inside of me, and after that I took acab--a bit of extravagance that my hurry justified--and bustled aboutfrom shop to shop and got what I needed inside of an hour; and then Itold the man to drive me to my lodgings up-town.

It was while I was driving up Broadway--the first quiet moment forthinking that had come to me since I had met Captain Luke on SouthStreet, and we had gone into the saloon together to settle about thepassage he had offered me--that all of a sudden the thought struck methat perhaps I had made the biggest kind of a fool of myself; and itstruck so hard that for a minute or two I fairly was dizzy and faint.

What earthly proof had I, beyond Captain Luke's bare word for it, thatthere was such a brig as the _Golden Hind_? What proof had Ieven--beyond the general look of him and his canvas pocket-book--thatCaptain Luke was a sailor? And what proof had I, supposing that therewas such a brig and that he was a sailor, that the two had anythingto do with each other? I simply had accepted for truth all that hetold me, and on the strength of his mere assertion that he was aship-master and was about to sail for the West African coast I hadpaid him my fifty dollars--and had taken by way of receipt for it nomore than a clinking of our glasses and a shake of his hand. I saidjust now that I was only twenty-three years old, and more or less of apromiscuously green young fool. I suppose that I might as well haveleft that out. There are some things that tell themselves.

For three or four blocks, as I drove along, I was in such a rage withmyself that I could not think clearly. Then I began to cool a little,and to hope that I had gone off the handle too suddenly and too far.After all, there were some chances in my favor the other way. CaptainChilton, I remembered, had told me that he was about to sail for WestCoast ports before I asked him for a passage; and had mentioned, also,whereabouts on the anchorage the _Golden Hind_ was lying. Had he madethese statements after he knew what I wanted there would have beensome reason for doubting them; but being made on general principles,without knowledge of what I was after, it seemed to me that they verywell might be true. And if they were true, why then there was no greatcause for my sudden fit of alarm. However, I was so rattled by myfright, and still so uncertain as to how things were coming out forme, that the thought of waiting until the next afternoon to knowcertainly whether I had or had not been cheated was more than I couldbear. The only way that I could see to settle the matter was to goright away down to the anchorage, and so satisfy myself that the_Golden Hind_ was a real brig and really was lying there; and itoccurred to me that I might kill two birds with one stone, and alsohave a reason to give for a visit which otherwise might seemunreasonable, if I were to take down my luggage and put it aboard thatvery afternoon.

II

HOW I BOARDED THE BRIG _GOLDEN HIND_

Having come to this conclusion, I acted on it. I kept the cab at thedoor while I finished my packing with a rush, and then piled myluggage on it and in it--and what with my two trunks, and my kit offine tools, and all my bundles, this made tight stowing--and then awayI went down-town again as fast as the man could drive with sucha load.

We got to the Battery in a little more than an hour, and there Itransshipped my cargo to a pair-oared boat and started away for theanchorage. The boatmen comforted me a good deal at the outset bysaying that they thought they knew just where the _Golden Hind_ waslying, as they were pretty sure they had seen her only that morningwhile going down the harbor with another fare; and before we were muchmore than past Bedloe's Island--having pulled well over to get out ofthe channel and the danger of being run down by one of the swarm ofpassing craft--they made my mind quite easy by actually pointing herout to me. But almost in the same moment I was startled again by oneof them saying to me: "I don't believe you've much time to spare,captain. There's a lighter just shoved off from her, and she's gettin'her tops'ls loose. I guess she means to slide out on this tide. Thattug seems to be headin' for her now."

The men laid to their oars at this, and it was a good thing--or a badthing, some people might think--that they did; for had we lost fiveminutes on our pull down from the Battery I never should have gotaboard of the _Golden Hind_ at all. As it was, the anchor was a-peak,and the lines of the tug made fast, by the time that we rounded underher counter; and the decks were so full of the bustle of starting thatit was only a chance that anybody heard our hail. But somebody didhear it, and a man--it was the mate, as I found out afterwards--cameto the side.

But just then I caught sight of Captain Chilton, coming aft to standby the wheel, and called out to him by name. He turned in a hurry--andwith a look of being scared, I fancied--but it seemed to me a goodhalf-minute before he answered me. In this time the men had shoved theboat alongside and had made fast to the main-chains; and just thenthe tug began to puff and snort, and the towline lifted, and the brigslowly began to gather way. I could not understand what they were upto; but the boatmen, who were quick fellows, took the matter intotheir own hands, and began to pass in my boxes over the gunwale--thebrig lying very low in the water--as we moved along. This brought themate to the side again, with a rattle of curses and orders to standoff. And then Captain Chilton came along himself--having finishedwhatever he had been doing in the way of thinking--and gave matters amore reasonable turn.

"It's all right, George," he said to the mate. "This gentleman is afriend of mine who's going out with us" (the mate gave him a queerlook at that), "and he's got here just in time." And then he turned tome and added: "I'd given you up, Mr. Stetworth, and that's afact--concluding that the man I sent to your lodgings hadn't foundyou. We had to sail this afternoon, you see, all in a hurry; and theonly thing I could do was to rush a man after you to bring you down.He seems to have overhauled you in time, even if it was a closecall--so all's well."

While he was talking the boatmen were passing aboard my boxes andbundles, while the brig went ahead slowly; and when they all wereshipped, and I had paid the men, he gave me his hand in a friendly wayand helped me up the side. What to make of it all I could not tell.Captain Luke told a straight enough story, and the fact that hismessenger had not got to me before I started did not prove that helied. Moreover, he went on to say that if I had not got down to thebrig he had meant to leave my fifty dollars with the palm-oil peopleat Loango, and that sounded square enough too. At any rate, if he werelying to me I had no way of proving it against him, and he wasentitled to the benefit of the doubt; and so, when he had finishedexplaining matters--which was short work, as he had the brig to lookafter--I did not see my way to refusing his suggestion that we shouldcall it all right and shake hands.

For the next three hours or so--until we were clear of the Hook andhad sea-room and the tug had cast us off--I was left to my owndevices: except that a couple of men were detailed to carry to mystate-room what I needed there, while the rest of my boxes were stowedbelow. Indeed, nobody had time to spare me a single word--the captainstanding by the wheel in charge of the brig, and the two mates havingtheir hands full in driving forward the work of finishing the lading,so that the hatches might be on and things in some sort of orderbefore the crew should be needed to make sail.

The decks everywhere were littered with the stuff put aboard from thelighter that left the brig just before I reached her, and the huddleand confusion showed that the transfer must have been made in atearing hurry. Many of the boxes gave no hint of what was inside ofthem; but a good deal of the stuff--as the pigs of lead and cans ofpowder, the many five-gallon kegs of spirits, the boxes of fixedammunition, the cases of arms, and so on--evidently was regular WestCoast "trade." And all of it was jumbled together just as it had beentumbled aboard.

I was surprised by our starting with the brig in such a mess--until itoccurred to me that the captain had no choice in the matter if hewanted to save the tide. Very likely the tide did enter into hiscalculations; but I was led to believe a little later--and all themore because of his scared look when I hailed him from the boat--thathe had run into some tangle on shore that made him want to get away ina hurry before the law-officers should bring him up with a round turn.

What put this notion into my head was a matter that occurred when wewere down almost to the Hook, and its conclusion came when we werefairly outside and the tug had cast us off; otherwise my boxes and Iassuredly would have gone back on the tug to New York--and I with aflea in my ear, as the saying is, stinging me to more prudence in mydealings with chance-met mariners and their offers of cheap passageson strange craft.

When we were nearly across the lower bay, the nose of a steamershowed in the Narrows; and as she swung out from the land I saw thatshe flew the revenue flag. Captain Luke, standing aft by the wheel, nodoubt made her out before I did; for all of a sudden he let drive avolley of curses at the mates to hurry their stowing below of thestuff with which our decks were cluttered. At first I did notassociate the appearance of the cutter with this outbreak; but as shecame rattling down the bay in our wake I could not but notice hisuneasiness as he kept turning to look at her and then turning forwardagain to swear at the slowness of the men. But she was a long wayastern at first, and by the time that she got close up to us we werefairly outside the Hook and the tug had cast us off--which made adelay in the stowing, as the men had to be called away from it to setenough sail to give us steerage way.

Captain Luke barely gave them time to make fast the sheets before hehurried them back to the hatch again; and by that time the cutter hadso walked up to us that we had her close aboard. I could see that hefully expected her to hail us; and I could see also that there seemedto be a feeling of uneasiness among the crew, though they went onbriskly with their work of getting what remained of the boxes andbarrels below. And then, being close under our stern, the cutterquietly shifted her helm to clear us--and so slid past us, withouthailing and with scarcely a look at us, and stood on out to sea.

That the captain and all hands so manifestly should dread beingoverhauled by a government vessel greatly increased my vague doubts asto the kind of company that I had got into; and at the very momentthat the cutter passed us these doubts were so nearly resolved intobad certainties that my thoughts shot around from speculation uponCaptain Luke's possible perils into consideration of what seemed to bevery real perils of my own.

With the cutter close aboard of us, and with the captain and both themates swearing at them, I suppose that the men at the hatch--who wereswinging the things below with a whip--got rattled a little. At anyrate, some of them rigged the sling so carelessly that a box fell outfrom it, and shot down to the main-deck with such a bang that it burstopen. It was a small and strongly made box, that from its shape andevident weight I had fancied might have arms in it. But when it splitto bits that way--the noise of the crash drawing me to the hatch tosee what had happened--its contents proved to be shackles: and thesight of them, and the flash of thought which made me realize whatthey must be there for, gave me a sudden sick feeling in my inside!

In my hurried reading about the West Coast--carried on at odd timessince my meeting with the palm-oil people--I had learned enough aboutthe trade carried on there to know that slaving still was a part ofit; but so small a part that the matter had not much stuck in my mind.But it was a fact then (as it also is a fact now) that the traders whorun along the coast--exchanging such stuff as Captain Luke carried forivory and coffee and hides and whatever offers--do now and then takethe chances and run a cargo of slaves from one or another of the lowerports into Mogador: where the Arab dealers pay such prices for livefreight in good condition as to make the venture worth the risk thatit involves. This traffic is not so barbarous as the old traffic toAmerica used to be--when shippers regularly counted upon the loss of athird or a half of the cargo in transit, and so charged off thedeath-rate against profit and loss--for the run is a short one, andslaves are so hard to get and so dangerous to deal in nowadays that itis sound business policy to take enough care of them to keep themalive. But I am safe in saying that the men engaged in the Mogadortrade are about the worst brutes afloat in our time--not excepting theisland traders of the South Pacific--and for an honest man to getafloat in their company opens to him large possibilities of beingmurdered off-hand, with side chances of sharing in their punishment ifhe happens to be with them when they are caught. And so it is not tobe wondered at that when I saw the shackles come flying out from thatbroken box, and so realized the sort of men I had for shipmates, thata sweating fright seized me which made my stomach go queer. And then,as I thought how I had tumbled myself into this scrape that the leastshred of prudence would have kept me out of, I realized for the secondtime that day that I was very young and very much of a fool.

III

I HAVE A SCARE, AND GET OVER IT

I went to the stern of the brig and looked at the tug, far off andalmost out of sight in the dusk, and at the loom of the Highlands,above which shone the light-house lamps--and my heart went down intomy boots, and for a while stayed there. For a moment the thought cameinto my head to cut away the buoy lashed to the rail and to take mychances with it overboard--trusting to being picked up by some passingvessel and so set safe ashore. But the night was closing down fast anda lively sea was running, and I had sense enough to perceive thatleaving the brig that way would be about the same as getting out ofthe frying-pan into the fire.

Fortunately, in a little while I began to get wholesomely angry; whichalways is a good thing, I think, when a man gets into a tightplace--if he don't carry it too far--since it rouses the fightingspirit in him and so helps him to pull through. In reason, I ought tohave been angry with myself, for the trouble that I was in was all ofmy own making; but, beyond giving myself a passing kick or two, allmy anger was turned upon Captain Luke for taking advantage of mygreenness to land me in such a pickle when his gain from it would beso small. I know now that I did Captain Luke injustice. His subsequentconduct showed that he did not want me aboard with him any more than Iwanted to be there. Had I not taken matters into my own hands byboarding the brig in such a desperate hurry--just as I had hurried toclose with his offer and to clinch it by paying down mypassage-money--he would have gone off without me. And very likely hewould have thought that the lesson in worldly wisdom he had given mewas only fairly paid for by the fifty dollars which had jumped soeasily out of my pocket into his.

But that was not the way I looked at the matter then; and in my heartI cursed Captain Luke up hill and down dale for having, as I fancied,lured me aboard the brig and so into peril of my skin. And my angerwas so strong that I went by turns hot and cold with it, and itched toget at Captain Luke with my fists and give him a dressing--which Ivery well could have done, had we come to fighting, for I was a biggerman than he was and a stronger man, too.

It is rather absurd as I look back at it, considering what a taking Iwas in and how strong was my desire just then to punch Captain Luke'shead for him, that while I was at the top of my rage he came aft towhere I was leaning against the rail and put his hand on my shoulderas friendly as possible and asked me to come down into the cabin tosupper. I suppose I had a queer pale look, because of my anger, for hesaid not to mind if I did feel sickish, but to eat all the same and Iwould feel better for it; and he really was so cordial and so pleasantthat for a moment or two I could not answer him. It was upsetting,when I was so full of fight, to have him come at me in that friendlyway; and I must say that I felt rather sheepish, and wondered whetherI had not been working myself up over a mare's-nest as I followedhim below.

We had the mate to supper with us, at a square table in the middle ofthe cabin, and at breakfast the next morning we had the second mate;and so it went turn and turn with them at meals--except that they hadsome sort of dog-watch way about the Saturday night and Sunday morningthat always gave the mate his Sunday dinner with the captain, as wasthe due of his rank.

The mate was a surly brute, and when Captain Chilton said, in quite aformal way, "Mr. Roger Stetworth, let me make you acquainted with Mr.George Hinds," he only grunted and gave me a sort of a nod. He did nothave much to say while the supper went on, speaking only when thecaptain spoke to him, and then shortly; but from time to time hesnatched a mighty sharp look at me--that I pretended not to notice,but saw well enough out of the tail of my eye. It was plain enoughthat he was taking my measure, and I even fancied that he would havebeen better pleased had I been six inches or so shorter and with lesswell-made shoulders and arms. When he did speak it was in a growlingrumble of a voice, and he swore naturally.

Captain Luke evidently tried to make up for the mate's surliness; andhe really was very pleasant indeed--telling me stories about theCoast, and giving me good advice about guarding against sicknessthere, and showing such an interest in my prospects with the palm-oilpeople, and in my welfare generally, that I was still more inclined tothink that my scare about the shackles was only foolishness from firstto last. He seemed to be really pleased when he found that I was notseasick, and interested when I told him how well I knew the sea andthe management of small craft from my sailing in the waters aboutNantucket every summer for so many years; and then we got to talkingabout the Coast again and about my outfit for it, which he said was avery good one; and he especially commended me--instead of laughing atme, as I was afraid he would--for having brought along such a lot ofquinine. Indeed, the quinine seemed to make a good deal of animpression on him, for he turned to the mate and said: "Do you hearthat, George? Mr. Stetworth has with him a whole case ofquinine--enough to serve a ship's company through a cruise." And themate rumbled out, as he got up from the table and started for thedeck, that quinine was a damned good thing.

We waited below until the second mate came down, to whom the captainintroduced me with his regular formula: "Mr. Roger Stetworth, let memake you acquainted with Mr. Martin Bowers." He was a young fellow, ofno more than my own age, and I took a fancy to him at sight--for henot only shook my hand heartily but he looked me squarely in the eyes,and that is a thing I like a man to do. It seemed to me that my beingthere was a good deal of a puzzle to him; and he also took my measure,but quite frankly--telling me when he had looked me over that if Iknew how to steer I'd be a good man to have at the wheel in a gale.

The captain brought out a bottle of his favorite arrack, and he and Ihad a glass together--in which, as I thought rather hard, Bowers wasnot given a chance to join us--and then we went on deck and walked upand down for a while, smoking our pipes and talking about the weatherand the prospects for the voyage. And it all went so easily and sopleasantly that I couldn't help laughing a little to myself overmy scare.

I turned in early, for I was pretty well tired after so lively a day;but when I got into my bunk I could not get to sleep for a longwhile--although the bunk was a good one and the easy motion of thebrig lulled me--for the excitement I was in because my voyage fairlywas begun. I slipped through my mind all that had happened to me thatday--from my meeting with Captain Luke in the forenoon until there Iwas, at nine o'clock at night, fairly out at sea; and I was so pleasedwith the series of lucky chances which had put me on my way so rapidlythat my one mischance--my scare about the shackles--seemedutterly absurd.

It was perfectly reasonable, I reflected, for Captain Luke to carryout a lot of shackles simply as "trade." It was pretty dirty "trade,"of course, but so was the vile so-called brandy he was carrying outwith him; and so, for that matter, were the arms--which prettycertainly would be used in slaving forays up from the Coast. And evensupposing the very worst--that Captain Luke meant to ship a cargo ofslaves himself and had these irons ready for them--that worst wouldcome after I was out of the brig and done with her; the captain havingtold me that Loango, which was my landing-place, would be his firstport of call. When I was well quit of the _Golden Hind_ she and hercrew and her captain, for all that I cared, might all go to the deviltogether. It was enough for me that I should be well treated on thevoyage over; and from the way that the voyage had begun--unless thesurly mate and I might have a bit of a flare-up--it looked as though Iwere going to be very well treated indeed. And so, having come to thiscomforting conclusion, I let the soft motion of the brig have its waywith me and began to snooze.

A little later I was partly aroused by the sound of steps coming downthe companion-way; and then by hearing, in the mate's rumble, thesewords: "I guess you're right, captain. As you had to run for it to-daybefore you could buy our quinine, it's a damn good thing he did getaboard, after all!"

I was too nearly asleep to pay much attention to this, but in a drowsyway I felt glad that my stock of quinine had removed the mate'sobjections to me as a passenger; and I concluded that my purchase ofsuch an absurd lot of it--after getting worked up by my reading aboutthe West Coast fevers--had turned out to be a good thing for me inthe long-run.

After that the talk went on in the cabin for a good while, but in suchlow tones that even had I been wide awake I could not have followedit. But I kept dozing off, catching only a word or two now and then;and the only whole sentence I heard was in the mate's rumble again:"Well, if we can't square things, there's always room for one morein the sea."

It all was very dream-like--and fitted into a dream that came later,in the light sleep of early morning, I suppose, in which the mate worethe uniform of a street-car conductor, and I was giving him doses ofquinine, and he was asking the passengers in a car full of salt-waterto move up and make room for me, and was telling them and me that in asea-car there always was room for one more.

IV

CAPTAIN LUKE MAKES ME AN OFFER

During the next fortnight or so my life on board the brig was aspleasant as it well could be. On the first day out we got a slant ofwind that held by us until it had carried us fairly into the northeasttrades--and then away we went on our course, with everything set anddrawing steady, and nothing much to do but man the wheel and eat threesquare meals a day.

And so everybody was in a good humor, from the captain down. Even themate rumbled what he meant to be a civil word to me now and then; andBowers and I--being nearly of an age, and each of us with his foot onthe first round of the ladder--struck up a friendship that kept ustalking away together by the hour at a time: and very frankly, exceptthat he was shy of saying anything about the brig and her doings, andwhenever I tried to draw him on that course got flurried a little andheld off. But in all other matters he was open; and especiallydelighted in running on about ships and seafaring--for the man was aborn sailor and loved his profession with all his heart.

It was in one of these talks with Bowers that I got my first knowledgeof the Sargasso Sea--about which I shortly was to know a great dealmore than he did: that old sea-wonder which puzzled and scaredColumbus when he coasted it on his way to discover America; and whichcontinued to puzzle all mariners until modern nautical sciencerevealed its cause--yet still left it a good deal of a mystery--almostin our own times.

The subject came up one day while we were crossing the Gulf Stream,and the sea all around us was pretty well covered with patches ofyellow weed--having much the look of mustard-plasters--amidst which abit of a barnacled spar bobbed along slowly near us, and not far off anew pine plank. The yellow stuff, Bowers said, was gulf-weed, broughtup from the Gulf of Mexico where the Stream had its beginning; andthat, thick though it was around us, this was nothing to the thicknessof it in the part of the ocean where the Stream (so he put it, notknowing any better) had its end. And to that same place, he added, theStream carried all that was caught in its current--like the spar andthe plank floating near us--so that the sea was covered with a thicktangle of the weed in which was held fast fragments of wreckage, andstuff washed overboard, and logs adrift from far-off southern shores,until in its central part the mass was so dense that no ship couldsail through it, nor could a steamer traverse it because of thefouling of her screw. And this sort of floating island--which lay in ageneral way between the Bermudas and the Canaries--covered an area ofocean, he said, half as big as the area of the United States; and toclear it ships had to make a wide detour--for even in its thin outwardedges a vessel's way was a good deal retarded and a steamer's wheelwould foul sometimes, and there was danger always of collision withderelicts drifting in from the open sea to become a part of thecentral mass. Our own course, he further said, would be changedbecause of it; but we would be for a while upon what might be calledits coast, and so I would have a chance to see for myself something ofits look as we sailed along.

As I know now, Bowers over-estimated the size of this strange islandof sea-waifs and sea-weed by nearly one-half; and he was partly wrongas to the making of it: for the Sargasso Sea is not where any currentends, but lies in that currentless region of the ocean that is foundto the east of the main Gulf Stream and to the south of the branchwhich sweeps across the North Atlantic to the Azores; and its floatingstuff is matter cast off from the Gulf Stream's edge into thebordering still water--as a river eddies into its pools twigs and deadleaves and such-like small flotsam--and there is compacted bycapillary attraction and by the slow strong pressure of the winds.

On the whole, though, Bowers was not very much off in hisdescription--which somehow took a queer deep hold upon me, andespecially set me to wondering what strange old waifs and strays ofthe ocean might not be found in the thick of that tangle if only therewere some way of pushing into it and reaching the hidden depths thatno man ever yet had seen. But when I put this view of the matter tohim I did not get much sympathy. He was a practical young man, withouta stitch of romance in his whole make-up, and he only laughed at mysuggestion and said that anybody who tried to push into that mess justfor the sake of seeing some barnacle-covered logs, or perhaps arotting hulk or two, would be a good deal of a fool. And so I did notpress my fancy on him, and our talks went on about morecommonplace things.

It was with Captain Luke that I had most to do, and before long I gotto have a very friendly feeling for him because of the trouble that hetook to make me comfortable and to help me pass the time. The firstday out, seeing that I was interested when he took the sun, he turnedthe sextant over to me and showed me how to take an observation; andthen how to work it out and fix the brig's position on the chart--andwas a good deal surprised by my quickness in understanding hisexplanations (for I suppose that to him, with his rule-of-thumbknowledge of mathematics, the matter seemed complex), and still moresurprised when he found, presently, that I really understood theunderlying principle of this simple bit of seamanship far better thanhe did himself. He said that I knew more than most of the captainsafloat and that I ought to be a sailor; which he meant, no doubt, tobe the greatest compliment that he could pay me. After that I took thesights and worked them with him daily; and as I several timescorrected his calculations--for even simple addition and subtractionwere more than he could manage with certainty--he became so impressedby my knowledge as to treat me with an odd show of respect.

But in practical matters--knowledge of men and things, and of the manyplaces about the world which he had seen, and of the management of aship in all weathers--he was one of the best-informed men that ever Icame across: being naturally of a hard-headed make, with greatacuteness of observation, and with quick and sound reasoning powers. Ifound his talk always worth listening to; and I liked nothing betterthan to sit beside him, or to walk the deck with him, while we smokedour pipes together and he told me in his shrewd way about one queerthing and another which he had come upon in various parts of theworld--for he had followed the sea from the time that he was a boy,and there did not seem to be a bit of coast country nor any part ofall the oceans which he did not know well.

Unlike Bowers, he was very free in talking about the trade that hecarried on in the brig upon the African coast, and quite astonished meby his showing of the profits that he made; and he generally ended hisdiscourses on this head by laughingly contrasting the amount of moneythat even Bowers got every year--the mates being allowed an interestin the brig's earnings--with the salary that the palm-oil people wereto pay to me. Indeed, he managed to make me quite discontented with myprospects, although I had thought them very good indeed when I firsttold him about them; and when he would say jokingly, as he very oftendid, that I had better drop the palm-oil people and take a berth onthe brig instead, I would be half sorry that he was only in fun.

In a serious way, too, he told me that the Coast trade had got veryunfairly a bad name that it did not deserve. At one time, he said, agreat many hard characters had got into it, and their doings had givenit a black reputation that still stuck to it. But in recent years, heexplained, it had fallen into the hands of a better class of traders,and its tone had been greatly improved. As a rule, he declared, theWest Coast traders were as decent men as would be found anywhere--notsaints, perhaps, he said smilingly, but men who played a reasonablysquare game and who got big money mainly because they took big risks.When I asked him what sort of risks, he answered: "Oh, pretty much allsorts--sometimes your pocket and sometimes your neck," and added thatto a man of spirit these risks made half the fun. And then he saidthat for a man who did not care for that sort of thing it was betterto be contented with a safe place and low wages--and asked me how longI expected to stay at Loango, and if I had a better job ahead, when mywork there was done.

At first he would shift the subject when I tried to make him talkabout the slave traffic. But one day--it was toward the end of oursecond week out, and I was beginning to think from his constantturning to it that perhaps he really might mean to offer me a berth onthe brig, and that his offer might be pretty well worth accepting--heall of a sudden spoke out freely and of his own accord. It was true,he said, that sometimes a few blacks were taken aboard by traders,when no other stuff offered for barter, and were carried up to Mogadorand there sold for very high prices indeed--for there was a prejudiceagainst the business, and the naval vessels on the Coast tried sopersistently to stop it that the risk of capture was great and theprofit from a successful venture correspondingly large. But theprejudice, he continued, was really not well-founded. Slavery, ofcourse, was a very bad thing; but there were degrees of badness in it,and since it could not be broken up there was much to be said in favorof any course that would make it less cruel. The blacks who were theslaves of other blacks, or of Portuguese,--and it was only these thatthe traders bought--were exposed to such barbarous treatment that itwas a charity to rescue them from it on almost any terms. Certainly itwas for their good, as they had to be in bondage somewhere, to deliverthem from such masters by carrying them away to Northern Africa: wherethe slavery was of so mild and paternal a sort that cruelty almost wasunknown. And then he went on to tell me about the kindly relationswhich he himself had seen existing between slaves and their masters inthose parts, both among Arabs and Moors.

This presentment of the case put so new a face on it that at first Icould not get my bearings; which I am the less ashamed to own up tobecause, as I look at the matter now, I perceive how much troubleCaptain Luke took to win me for his own purposes--he being amiddle-aged man packed full of shrewd worldly wisdom, and I only afresh young fool.

My hesitation about making up an answer to him--for, while I was surethat in the main point he was all wrong, I was caught for the momentin his sophisms--made him fancy, I suppose, that he had convinced me;and so was safe to go ahead in the way that he had intended, no doubt,all along. At any rate, without stopping until my slow wits had achance to get pulled together, he put on a great show of friendlyfrankness and said that he now knew me well enough to trust me, and sowould tell me openly that he himself engaged in the Mogador trade whenoccasion offered; and that there was more money in it a dozen timesover than in all the other trade that he carried on in the_Golden Hind_.

I confess that this avowal completely staggered me, and with a rushbrought back all the fears by which I had been so rattled on the firstday of our voyage. In a hazy way I perceived that the captain had beenplaying a part with me, and that the others had been playing partstoo--for I could not hope that among men of that stripe suchfriendliness should be natural--and what with my surprise, and thefresh fright I was thrown into, I was struck fairly dumb.

But Captain Luke--likely enough deceived by his own hopes, as evenshrewd men will be sometimes--either did not notice the fluster I wasin, or thought to set matters all right with me in his own way; forwhen he found that I remained silent he took up the talk himselfagain, and went on to show in detail the profits of a single venturewith a live cargo--and his figures were certainly big enough to firethe fancy of any man who was keen for money-getting and who waswilling to get his money by rotten ways. And then, when he hadfinished with this part of the matter, he came out plumply with theoffer to give me a mate's rating on board the brig if I would cast inmy fortunes with his. Of the theory of seamanship, he said, I alreadyknew more than he did himself; and so much more than either of hismates that he would feel entirely at ease--as he could not withthem--in trusting the navigation of the brig in my hands. As to thepractical part of the work, that was a matter that with my quickness Iwould pick up in no time; and my bigness and strength, he added, wouldcome in mighty handily when there was trouble among the crew, assometimes happened, and in keeping the blacks in order, and in thelittle fights that now and then were necessary with folks on shore.And then he came to the real kernel of the matter: which was thatBowers did not like his work and was not fit for it, and wasthreatening to leave the brig at the first port she made, and so a manwho could be trusted was badly needed to take his place.

When he had finished with it all I was dumber than ever; for I was ina rage at him for making me such an offer, and at the same time sawpretty clearly that if I refused it as plumply as he made it weshould come to such open enmity that I--being in his powercompletely--would be in danger of my skin. And so I was glad when hegave me a breathing spell, and the chance to think things overquietly, by telling me that he would not hurry me for answer and thatI could take a day or two--or a week or two if I wanted it--in whichto make up my mind.

V

I GIVE CAPTAIN LUKE MY ANSWER

For the rest of that day, and for the two days following, Captain Lukedid not in any way refer to his offer; and as he showed himself morethan ever friendly, and talked away to me in his usual entertainingfashion, my rage and fright began to go off a little--though atbottom, of course, there was no change in my opinions, nor any doubtas to my giving him a point-blank refusal when the issue should besquarely raised.

All this time the brig was bowling along down the trades; and on thethird morning after I had the captain's offer--we being then closeupon the thirty-fifth parallel of north latitude--Bowers called myattention to the gulf-weed floating about us, and told me that we werefairly on the outer edge of the Sargasso Sea. We should not get intoany thicker part of it, he said, as we should bear up to clear it; andso we actually did, hauling away a good deal to the eastward when thebrig's course was set that day at noon. But my interest in the matterhad been so checked--all my thought being given to finding some wayout of the pickle in which I found myself--that I paid littleattention to the patches of yellow weed on the water around us or tothe bits of wreckage that we saw now and then; and when Bowers,keeping on with his talk, fell to chaffing me about my desire to makea voyage of discovery into the thick part of this floating mystery Idid not rise to his joking, nor did I make him much of a reply.

Indeed, I was in rather a low way that day; which was due in part tomy not being able, for all my thinking, to see any sort of a clearcourse before me; and in part to the fact that the weather wasthickening and that my spirits were dulled a good deal by what we callthe heaviness of the air. All around the horizon steel-gray cloudswere rising, and a soft sort of a haze hung about us and took the lifeout of the sunshine, and the wind fell away until there was almostnothing of it, and that little fitful--while with the dying out of itthe sea began to stir slowly with a long oily swell. Far down to thesoutheast a line of smoke hung along the horizon, coming from thefunnel of some steamer out of sight over the ocean's curve, and theheaviness of the atmosphere was shown by the way that this smoke heldclose to the surface of the sea.

That Captain Luke did not like the look of things was plain enoughfrom his sharp glances about him and from his frequent examinationsof the glass; and he seemed to be all the more bothered--his seaman'sinstinct that a storm was brewing being at odds with the barometer'sprophecy--by the fact that the mercury showed a marked tendency torise. Had he known as much of the scientific side of navigation as heknew of the practical side he could have reconciled the conduct of thebarometer with his own convictions, and so would have been easier inhis mind; for it is a fact that the mercury often rises suddenly onthe front edge of a storm--that is to say, a little in advance ofit--by reason of the air banking up there. But having only hisrule-of-thumb knowledge to apply in the premises, the apparentscientific contradiction of his own practical notions as to what wasgoing to happen confused him and made him irritable--thenerve-stirring state of the atmosphere no doubt having also a share inthe matter--as was made plain by his sharp quick motions, and by theway in which on the smallest provocation he fell to swearing at themen. And so the day wore itself out to nightfall: with the steel-grayclouds lifting steadily from the horizon toward the zenith, and withthe swell of the weed-spattered sea slowly rising, and with a doubtinguneasiness among all of us that found its most marked expression inCaptain Luke's increasingly savage mood.

Our supper was a glowering one. The captain had little to say, andthat little of a sharp sort, while the mate only rumbled out a cursenow and then at the boy who served us; and I myself was in a bitterbad humor as I thought how hard it was on me to be shut up at sea insuch vile company, and how I had only myself to blame for getting intoit--and found my case all the harder because of my nervous uneasinessdue to the coming storm. As to the storm, there no longer could bedoubt about it, for the barometer had got into line with CaptainLuke's convictions and was falling fast.

When the supper was over the captain brought out his arrack-bottle andtook off a full tumbler, which was more than double his usualallowance, and then pushed the liquor across to the mate and me. Themate also took a good pull at it, and I took a fair drink myself inthe hope that it would quiet my nerves--but it had exactly theopposite effect and made me both excited and cross. And then we allcame on deck together, and all in a rough humor, and Bowers went downinto the cabin to have his supper by himself.

What happened in the next half-hour happened so quickly that I cannotgive a very clear account of it. A part of it, no doubt, was due tomere chance and angry impulse; but not the whole of it, and I thinknot the worst of it--for the first thing that the captain did was toorder the man who was steering to go forward and to tell the mate totake the wheel. That left just the three of us together at the sternof the brig--with Bowers below and so out of sight and hearing, andwith all the crew completely cut off from us and put out of sight andhearing by the rise of the cabin above the deck.

Night had settled down on the ocean, but not darkness. Far off to theeastward the full moon was standing well above the horizon and wasfighting her way upward through the clouds--now and then gettingenough the better of them to send down a dash of brightness on thewater, but for the most part making only a faint twilight throughtheir gloom. The wind still was very light and fitful, but broken bystrongish puffs which would heel the brig over a little and send heralong sharply for half a mile or so before they died away; and theswell had so risen that we had a long sleepy roll. Up to windward Imade out a ship's lights--that seemed to be coming down on us rapidly,from their steady brightening--and I concluded that this must be thesteamer from which the smoke had come that I had seen trailing alongthe horizon through the afternoon; and I even fancied, the night beingintensely still, that I could hear across the water the soft purringsound made by the steady churning of her wheel. Somehow it deepenedthe sullen anger that had hold of me to see so close by a ship havinghonest men aboard of her, and to know at the same time how hopelesslyfast I was tied to the brig and her dirty crew. I don't mind sayingthat the tears came to my eyes, for I was both hurt by my sorrow andheavy with my dull rage.

We all three were silent for a matter of ten minutes or so, or itmight even have been longer, and then Captain Luke faced around on mesuddenly and asked: "Well, have you made up your mind?"

Had I been cooler I should have tried to fence a little, since my onlyresource--I being caught like a rat in a trap that way--was to try togain time; but I was all in a quiver, just as I suppose he was, withthe excitement of the situation and with the excitement of thethunderous night, and his short sharp question jostled out of my headwhat few wits I had there and made me throw away my only chance. Andso I answered him, just as shortly and as sharply: "Yes, I have."

"Do you mean to join the brig?" he demanded.

"No, I don't," I answered, and stepped a little closer to him andlooked him squarely in the eyes.

"I told you so," the mate broke in with his rumble; and I saw that hewas whipping a light lashing on the wheel in a way that would hold itsteady in case he wanted to let go.

"Better think a minute," said Captain Luke, speaking coolly enough,but still with an angry undertone in his voice. "I've made you a goodoffer, and I'm ready to stand by it. But if you won't take what I'veoffered you you'll take something else that you won't like, my freshyoung man. In a friendly way, and for your information, I've told youa lot of things that I can't trust to the keeping of any living manwho won't chip in with us and take our chances--the bad ones with thegood ones--just as they happen to come along. You know too much, now,for me to part company from you while you have a wagging tongue inyour head--and so my offer's still open to you. Only there's thisabout it: if you won't take it, overboard you go."

I had a little gleam of sense at that; for I knew that he spoke indead earnest, and that the mate stood ready to back him, and thatagainst the two of them I had not much show. And so I tried to playfor time, saying: "Well, let me think it over a bit longer. You saidthere was no hurry and that I might have a week to consider in. I'vehad only three days, so far. Do you call that square?"

"Squareness be damned," rumbled the mate, and he gave a look aloft andanother to windward--the breeze just then had fallen to a merewhisper--and took his hands off the wheel and stepped away from it sothat he and the captain were close in front of me, side by side. Istood off from them a little, and got my back against the cabin--thatI might be safe against an attack from behind--and I was so furiouslyangry that I forgot to be scared.

"Three days is as good as three years," Captain Luke jerked out. "WhatI want is an answer right now. Will you join the brig--yes or no?"

Somehow I remembered just then seeing our pig killed, when I was aboy--how he ran around the lot with the men after him, and got into acorner and tried to fight them, and was caught in spite of his poorlittle show of fighting, and was rolled over on his back and had histhroat stuck. He was a nice pig, and I had felt sorry for him:thinking that he didn't deserve such treatment, his life having been arespectable one, and he never having done anybody any harm. It allcame back to me in a flash, as I settled myself well against the cabinand answered: "No, I won't join you--and you and your brig may goto hell!"

All I remember after that was their rush together upon me, and myhitting out two or three times--getting in one smasher on the mate'sjaw that was a comfort to me--and then something hard cracking me onthe head, and so stunning me that I knew nothing at all of whathappened until I found myself coming up to the surface of the sea,sputtering salt-water and partly tangled in a bunch of gulf-weed, andsaw the brig heeling over and sliding fast away from me before asudden strong draught of wind.

VI

I TIE UP MY BROKEN HEAD, AND TRY TO ATTRACT ATTENTION

My head was tingling with pain, and so buzzy that I had no sense worthspeaking of, but just kept myself afloat in an instinctive sort of wayby paddling a little with my hands. And I could not see well for whatI thought was water in my eyes--until I found that it was bloodrunning down over my forehead from a gash in my scalp that went fromthe top of my right ear pretty nearly to my crown. Had the blow thatmade it struck fair it certainly would have finished me; but from theway that the scalp was cut loose the blow must have glanced.

The chill of the water freshened me and brought my senses back alittle: for which I was not especially thankful at first, being insuch pain and misery that to drown without knowing much about itseemed quite the best thing that I could hope for just then. Indeed,when I began to think again, though not very clearly, I had half amind to drop my arms to my sides and so go under and have done withit--so despairing was I as I bobbed about on the swell among thepatches of gulf-weed which littered the dark ocean, with the brigdrawing away from me rapidly, and no chance of a rescue from her evenhad she been near at hand.

Whether I had or had not hurried the matter, under I certainly shouldhave gone shortly--for the crack on my head and the loss of blood fromit had taken most of my strength out of me, and even with my fullstrength I could not have kept afloat long--had not a break in theclouds let through a dash of moonlight that gave me another chance. Itwas only for a moment or two that the moonlight lasted, yet longenough for me to make out within a hundred feet of me a biggish pieceof wreckage--which but for that flash I should not have noticed, or inthe dimness would have taken only for a bunch of weed.

Near though it was, getting to it was almost more than I could manage;and when at last I did reach it I was so nearly used up that I barelyhad strength to throw my arms about it and one leg over it, and sohang fast for a good many minutes in a half-swoon of weaknessand pain.

But the feel of something solid under me, and the certainty that for alittle while at least I was safe from drowning, helped me to pullmyself together; and before long some of my strength came back, and alittle of my spirit with it, and I went about settling myself moresecurely on my poor sort of a raft. What I had hit upon, I found, wasa good part of a ship's mast; with the yards still holding fast by itand steadying it, and all so clean-looking that it evidently had notbeen in the water long. The main-top, I saw, would give me a back tolean against and also a little shelter; and in that nook I would bestill more secure because the futtock-shrouds made a sort of cageabout it and gave me something to catch fast to should the swell ofthe sea roll me off. So I worked along the mast from where I first hadcaught hold of it until I got myself stowed away under the main-top:where I had my body fairly out of water, and a chance to rest easilyby leaning against the upstanding woodwork, and a good grip with mylegs to keep me firm. And it is true, though it don't sound so, that Iwas almost happy at finding myself so snug and safe there--as itseemed after having nothing under me but the sea.

And then I set myself--my head hurting me cruelly, and the flow ofblood still bothering me--to see what I could do in the way of bindingup my wound; and made a pretty good job of it, having a big silkhandkerchief in my pocket that I folded into a smooth bandage andpassed over my crown and under my chin--after first dowsing my head inthe cold sea water, which set the cut to smarting like fury but helpedto keep the blood from flowing after the bandage was made fast. Atfirst, while I was paddling in the water and splashing my way alongthe mast and while the bandage was flapping about my ears, I had nochance to hear any noises save those little ones close to me which Iwas making myself. But when I had finished my rough surgery, andleaned back against the top to rest after it--and my heart wasbeginning to sink with the thought of how utterly desperate my casewas, afloat there on the open ocean with a gale coming on--I heard inthe deep silence a faint rythmic sound that I recognized instantly asthe pulsing of a steamer's engine and the steady churning of herscrew. This mere whisper in the darkness was a very little thing tohang a hope upon; but hope did return to me with, the conviction thatthe sound came from the steamer of which I had seen the lights justbefore I was pitched overboard, and that I had a chance of her passingnear enough to me to hear my hail.

I peered eagerly over the waters, trying to make out her lights againand so settle how she was heading; but I could see no lights, thoughwith each passing minute the beating of the screw sounded louder to mystraining ears. From that I concluded that she must be coming upbehind me and was hid by the top from me; and so, slowly andpainfully, I managed to get on my hands and knees on the mast, andthen to raise myself until I stood erect and could see over the edgeof the top as it rose like a little wall upright--and gave a weakshout of joy as I saw what I was looking for, the three bright pointsagainst the blackness, not more than a mile away. And I was all themore hopeful because her red and green lights showed full on each sideof the white light on her foremast, and by that I knew that she washeading for me as straight as she could steer.

I gave another little shout--but fainter than the first, for mystruggle to get to my feet, and then to hold myself erect as the swellrolled the mast about, made me weak and a little giddy; and I wantedto keep on shouting--but had the sense not to, that I might save mystrength for the yells that I should have to give when the steamer gotnear enough to me for her people to hear my cries. So I stoodsilent--swaying with the roll of the mast, and with my head throbbinghorribly because of my excitement and the strain of holding onthere--while I watched her bearing down on me; and making her out soplainly as she got closer that it never occurred to me that I and mybit of mast would not be just as plain to her people as her great bulkwas to me.

I don't suppose that she was within a quarter of a mile of me when Ibegan my yelling; but I was too much worked up to wait longer, and theresult of my hurry was to make my voice very hoarse and feeble by thetime that she really was within hail. She came dashing along sostraight for me that I suddenly got into a tremor of fear that shewould run me down; and, indeed, she only cleared me by fifty feet orso--her huge black hull, dotted with the bright lights of her cabinports, sliding past me so close that she seemed to tower right up overme--and I was near to being swamped, so violently was my mast tossedabout by the rush and suck of the water from her big screw. And whileshe hung over me, and until she was gone past me and clear out of allhearing. I yelled and yelled!

At first I could not believe, so sure had I been of my rescue, thatshe had left me; and it was not until she was a good half mile awayfrom me, with only the sound of her screw ripping the water, and afaint gleam of light from her after ports showing through thedarkness, that I realized that she was gone--and then I grew so sickand dizzy that it is a wonder I did not lose my hold altogether andfall off into the sea. Somehow or another I managed to swing myselfdown and to seat myself upon the mast again, with my head fairlysplitting and with my heart altogether gone: and so rested there,shutting my eyes to hide the sight of my hope vanishing, and asdesolate as any man ever was.

Presently, in a dull way, I noticed that I no longer heard the swashof her screw, and rather wondered at her getting out of hearing soquickly; but for fear of still seeing her lights, and so having morepain from her, I still kept my eyes tight closed. And then, all of asudden, I heard quite close by me a hail--and opened my eyes in ahurry to see a light not a hundred feet away from me, and to make outbelow it the loom of a boat moving slowly over the weed-strewn sea.

The shout that I gave saved me, but before it saved me I came near tobeing done for. Such a rush of blood went up into my broken head withthe sudden burst of joy upon me that a dead faint came upon me and Ifell off into the water; and that I was floating when the boat got tome was due to the mere chance that as I dropped away from the mast oneof my arms slipped into the tangle of the futtock-shrouds. But I knewnothing about that, nor about anything else that happened, until wewere half-way back to the steamer and I came to my senses a little;and very little for a good while longer--except that I was swung up aship's side and there was a good deal of talking going on around me;and then that my clothes were taken off and I was lifted into a softdelightful berth; and then that somebody with gentle hands was bindingup my broken crown.

When this job was finished--which hurt me a good deal, but did notrouse me much--I just fell back upon the soft pillow and went tosleep: with a blessed sense of rest and safety, as I felt the roll ofa whole ship under me again after the short jerk of my mast, and knewthat I was not back on the brig but aboard an honest steamer byhearing and by feeling the strong steady pulsing of her screw.

VII

I ENCOUNTER A GOOD DOCTOR AND A VIOLENT GALE

I was roused from my sleep by the sharp motion of the vessel; but didnot get very wide awake, for I felt donsie and there was a dullringing in my head along with a great dull pain. I had sense enough,though, to perceive that the storm had come, about which Captain Lukeand the barometer had been at odds; and to shake a little with acreepy terror as I thought of the short work it would have made withme had I waited for it on my mast. But I was too much hurt to feelanything very keenly, and so heavy that even with the quick short rollof the ship to rouse me I kept pretty much in a doze.

After a while the door of my state-room was opened a little and a manpeeped in; and when he saw my open eyes looking at him he came inaltogether, giving me a nod and a smile. He was a tall fellow in ablue uniform, with a face that I liked the looks of; and when he spoketo me I liked the sound of his voice.

"You must be after being own cousin to all the Seven Sleepers ofEphesus and the dog too, my big young man," he said, holding fast tothe upper berth to steady himself. "You've put in ten solid hours, sofar, and you don't seem to be over wide awake yet. Faith, I'd be afterbacking you to sleep standing, like Father O'Rafferty's old dun cow!"

I did not feel up to answering him, but I managed to grin a little,and he went on: "I'm for thinking that I'd better let that broken headof yours alone till this fool of a ship is sitting stillagain--instead of trying to teach the porpoises such tricks of rollingand pitching as never entered into their poor brute minds. But you'lldo without doctoring for the present, myself having last night sewedup all right and tight for you the bit of your scalp that had fetchedaway. How does it feel?"

"It hurts," was all that I could answer.

"And small blame to it," said the doctor, and went on: "It's awell-made thick head you have, and its tough you are, my son, not tobe killed entirely by such a whack as you got on your brain-box--tosay nothing of your fancy for trying to cure it hydropathically bytaking it into the sea with you when you were for crossing theAtlantic Ocean on the fag-end of a mast. It's much indeed that youhave to learn, I am thinking, both about surgery and about taking careof yourself. But in the former you'll now do well, being in thecompetent hands of a graduate of Dublin University; and in regard toyour incompetence in the latter good reason have you for beingthankful that the _Hurst Castle_ happened to be travelling in theseparts last night, and that her third officer is blessed with a pair ofextra big ears and so happened to hear you talking to him from out ofthe depths of the sea."

"But talking isn't now the best thing for you, and some more of thesleep that you're so fond of is--if only the tumbling of the ship willlet you have it; so take this powder into that mouth of yours whichyou opened so wide when you were conversing with us as we went sailingpast you, and then stop your present chattering and take all the sleepthat you can hold."

With that he put a bitter powder into my mouth, and gave me a drink ofwater after it--raising me up with a wonderful deftness and gentlenessthat I might take it, and settling me back again on the pillow in justthe way that I wanted to lie. "And now be off again to your friendsthe Ephesians," he said; "only remember that if you or they--or theirdog either, poor beasty--wants anything, it's only needed to touchthis electric bell. As to the doggy," he added, with his hand on thedoor-knob, "tell him to poke at the button with the tip of his foolishnose." And with that he opened the door and went away. All thislight friendly talk was such a comfort to me--showing, as it did,along with the good care that I was getting, what kindly people I hadfallen among--that in my weak state I cried a little because of myhappy thankfulness; and then, my weakness and the powder actingtogether to lull me, in spite of the ship's sharp motion I went offagain to sleep.

But that time my sleep did not last long. In less than an hour, Isuppose, the motion became so violent as to shake me awake again--andto give me all that I could do to keep myself from being shot out ofmy berth upon the floor. Presently the doctor came again, fetchingwith him one of the cabin stewards to rig the storm-board at the sideof my berth and some extra pillows with which to wedge me fast. Butthough he gave me a lot more of his pleasant chaff to cheer me I couldsee that his look was anxious, and it seemed to me that the stewardwas badly scared. Between them they managed to stow me pretty tight inmy berth and to make me as comfortable as was possible whileeverything was in such commotion--with the ship bouncing about like apea on a hot shovel and all the wood-work grinding and creaking withthe sudden lifts and strains.

"It's a baddish gale that's got hold of the old _Hurst Castle_, andthat's a fact," the doctor said, when they had finished with me, inanswer to the questioning look that he saw in my eyes. "But it'snothing to worry about," he went on; "except that it's hard on you,with that badly broken head of yours, to be tumbled about worse thanMother O'Donohue's pig when they took it to Limerick fair in a cart.So just lie easy there among your pillows, my son; and pretend thatit's exercise that you are taking for the good of your liver--which isa torpid and a sluggish organ in the best of us, and always the betterfor such a shaking as the sea is giving us now. And be rememberingthat the _Hurst Castle_ is a Clyde-built boat, with every plate andrivet in her as good as a Scotsman knows how to make it--and in suchmatters it's the Sandies who know more than any other men alive. In myown ken she's pulled through storms fit to founder the Giant'sCauseway and been none the worse for 'em, and so it's herself that'scertain to weather this bit of a gale--which has been at its worst noless than two times this same morning, and therefore by all rule andreason must be for breaking soon.

"And be thinking, too," he added as he was leaving me, "that I'll becoming in to look after you now and then when I have a spareminute--for there are some others, I'm sorry to say, who are afterneeding me; and as soon as the gale goes down a bit I'll overhaulagain that cracked head of yours, and likely be singing you at thesame time for your amusement a real Irish song." But not much wasthere of singing, nor of any other show of lightheartedness, aboardthe _Hurst Castle_ during the next twelve hours. So far from breaking,the gale--as the doctor had called it, although in reality it was ahurricane--got worse steadily; with only a lull now and then, asthough for breath-taking, and then a fiercer rush of wind--beforewhich the ship would reel and shiver, while the grinding of her ironframe and the crunching of her wood-work made a sort of wild chorus ofgroans and growls. For all my wedging of pillows I was near to flyingover the storm-board out of my berth with some of the plunges that shetook; and very likely I should have had such a tumble had not thedoctor returned again in a little while and with the mattress from theupper berth so covered me as to jam me fast--and how he managed to dothis, under the circumstances, I am sure I don't know.

When he had finished my packing he bent down over me--or I could nothave heard him--and said: "It's sorry I am for you, my poor boy, foryou're getting just now more than your full share of troubles. Butwe're all in a pickle together, and that's a fact, and the choicebetween us is small. And I'd be for suggesting that if you know such athing as a prayer or two you'll never have a finer opportunity forsaying them than you have now." And by that, and by the friendlysorrowful look that he gave me, I knew that our peril mustbe extreme.

I don't like to think of the next few hours; while I lay there packedtight as any mummy, and with no better than a mummy's chances, as itseemed to me, of ever seeing the live world again--terrified by theawful war of the storm and by the confusion of wild noises, and everynow and then sharply startled by hearing on the deck above me a fiercecrash as something fetched away. It was a bad time, Heaven knows, foreverybody; but for me I thought that it was worst of all. For there Iwas lying in utter helplessness, with the certainty that if the shipfoundered there was not a chance for me--since I must drown solitaryin my state-room, like a rat drowned in a hole.

VIII

THE _HURST CASTLE_ IS DONE FOR

At last, having worn itself out, as sailors say, the storm began tolessen: first showing its weakening by losing its little lulls andfiercer gusts after them, and then dropping from a tempest to a meregale--that in turn fell slowly to a gentle wind. But even after thewind had fallen, and for a good while after, the ship labored in atremendous sea.

As I grew easier in my mind and body, and so could think a little, Iwondered why my friend the doctor did not come to me; and when at lastmy door was opened I looked eagerly--my eyes being the only free partof me--to see him come in. But it was the steward who entered, and Ihad a little sharp pang of disappointment because I missed the facethat I wanted to see. However, the man stooped over me, kindly enough,and lifted off the mattress and did his best to make me comfortable;only when I asked him where the doctor was he pretty dismallyshook his head.

"It's th' doctor himself is needin' doctorin', poor soul," heanswered, "he bein' with his right leg broke, and with his blessedhead broke a-most as bad as yours!" And then he told me that when thestorm was near ended the doctor had gone on deck to have a look atthings, and almost the minute he got there had been knocked over by afalling spar. "For th' old ship's shook a-most to pieces," the manwent on; "with th' foremast clean overboard, an' th' mizzen so wobblythat it's dancin' a jig every time she pitches, and everything at ragsan' tatters of loose ends."

"But the doctor?" I asked.

"He says himself, sir, that he's not dangerous, and I s'pose he oughtto know. Th' captain an' th' purser together, he orderin' 'em, haveset his leg for him; and his head, he says, 'll take care of itself,bein' both thick an' hard. But he's worryin' painful because he can'tlook after you, sir, an' th' four or five others that got hurt in th'storm. And I can tell you, sir," the man went on, "that all th' ship'scompany, an' th' passengers on top of 'em, are sick with sorrow thatthis has happened to him; for there's not a soul ever comes near th'doctor but loves him for his goodness, and we'd all be glad to breakour own legs this minute if by that we could be mendin' his!"

The steward spoke very feelingly and earnestly, and with what he saidI was in thorough sympathy; for the doctor's care of me and hisfriendliness had won my heart to him, just as it had won to him thehearts of all on board. But there was comfort in knowing that he hadgot off with only a broken leg and a broken head from a peril that soeasily might have been the death of him, and of that consolation Imade the most--while the steward, who was a handy fellow and prettywell trained as a surgeon's assistant, freshly bandaged my head for meas the doctor had ordered him to do, and so set me much more at myease. After that, for the rest of the day, he came every hour or so tolook after me; giving me some broth to eat and a biscuit, and somemedicine that the doctor sent me with the message that it would putstrength enough into a dead pig to set him to dancing--by which I knewthat even if his head and leg were broken there was no break in hiswhimsical fun.

The steward was the only man who came near me; but this did notsurprise me when he told me more about the condition that the ship wasin, and how all hands--excepting himself, who had been detailedbecause of his knowledge that way to look after the hurt people underthe doctors direction--were hard at work making repairs, with what menthere were among the passengers helping too. The ship was not leaking,he said, and this was the luckier because her frame was so strainedthat it was doubtful if her water-tight compartments would hold; butthe foremast had been carried away, and all the weather-boats had beenmashed out of all shape or swept overboard, and the mizzen was soshaky that it seemed likely at any moment to fall. Indeed, the mastwas in such a bad way, he said, that the first and second officerswere for getting rid of it--and of the danger that there was of itscoming down all in a heap anyway--by sending it overboard; but thatthe captain thought it safe to stand now that the sea was gettingsmooth again, and was setting up jury-stays to hold it until we madethe Azores--for which islands our course was laid.

By the time that night came again the sea had pretty well gone down,and beyond the easy roll that was on her the ship had no motion savethe steady vibration of her screw. With this comforting change thepain in my head became only a dull heavy aching, and I had a chance tofeel how utterly weary I was after the strain of mind and body thathad been put on me by the gale. A little after eight o'clock, as Iknew by hearing the ship's bell striking--and mighty pleasant it wasto hear regularly that orderly sound again--the steward brought me abowl of broth and propped me up in my berth while I drank it; andcheered me by telling me that the doctor was swearing at his brokenleg like a good fellow, and was getting on very well indeed. And thenmy weariness had its way with me, and I fell off into that deep sleepwhich comes to a man only when all his energy has slipped away fromhim on a dead low tide. How long I slept I do not know. But I doknow that I was routed suddenly into wakefulness by a jar that almostpitched me out of my berth, and that an instant later there was atremendous crash as though the whole deck above me was smashing topieces, and with this a rattle of light woodwork splintering and thesharp tinkling of breaking glass. For a moment there was silence; andthen I heard shouts and screams close by me in the cabin, and a littlelater a great trampling on deck, and then the screw stopped turningand there was a roar of escaping steam.

I was so heavy with sleep that at first I thought we still were in thestorm and that this commotion was a part of it; but as I shook off mydrowsiness I got a clearer notion of the situation--remembering whatthe steward had told me of the condition of the mizzen-mast, and soarriving at the conclusion that it had fetched away bodily and hadcome crashing through the cabin skylight in its fall. But what theshock was that had sent it flying--unless we had been in collision--Icould not understand. And all this while the trampling on deckcontinued, and out in the cabin the shouts and cries went on.

I thought that the steward would come to me--forgetting that in timesof danger men are apt to think only of saving their own skins--and solaid still; being, indeed, so weak and wretched that it did not seempossible to me to do anything else. But he did not come, and at theend of what seemed to me to be a desperately long time--though I doubtif it were more than five minutes--I realized that I must try to dosomething to help myself; and was the more nerved to action by thefact that there no longer was the sound of voices in the cabin, whilethe noises on deck a good deal had increased. Indeed, I began to hearup there the puffing and snorting of the donkey-engine, and so feltcertain that they were hoisting out the boats.

Somehow or another I managed to get out of my berth, and on my feet,and so to the door; but when I tried to open the door I could notbudge it, and in the darkness I struck my head against what seemed tobe a bar of wood that stuck in through one of the upper panels and soheld it fast. The blow dizzied me, for it took me close to where mycut was and put me into intense pain.

While I stood there, pulling in a weak way at the door-knob and makingnothing of it, I heard voices out in the cabin and through my brokendoor saw a gleam of light. But in the moment that my hope rose it wentdown again, for I heard some one say quickly and sharply: "It's nogood. The way the spar lies we can't get at him--and to cut it throughwould take an hour."

And then a voice that I recognized for the steward's answered: "Butthe doctor ordered it. Where's an axe for a try?" To which the otherman answered back again: "If it was the doctor himself we couldn't doit, and we'll tell him so. The ship'll be down in five minutes. We'vegot to run for it or the boats'll be off." And then away they rantogether, giving no heed in their fright to my yells after them tocome back and not leave me there to drown.

For a little while I was as nearly wild crazy as a man can be and yethave a purpose in his mind. The keen sense of my peril made me strongagain. I kicked with my bare feet and pounded with my hands upon thedoor to break it, I shouted for help to come to me, and I gave outshrill screams of terror such as brutes give in their agony--for I wasdown to the hard-pan of human nature, and what I felt most stronglywas the purely animal longing to keep alive.

But no one answered me, and I could tell by the sounds on deck gettingfainter that some of the boats already had put off; and in a littlewhile longer no sound came from the deck of any sort whatever, and bythat I knew that all the boats must have got away. And as I realizedthat I was forsaken, and felt sure from what I had heard that the shipwould float for only a few minutes longer, I gave a cry of downrightdespair--and then I lost track of the whole bad business by tumblingto the floor in the darkness in a dead swoon.

IX

ON THE EDGE OF THE SARGASSO SEA

When I came to myself again, and found my state-room--although thedead-light was set--bright with the light which entered through thebroken door, my first feeling was of wonder that I was not yetdrowned; for it was evident that the sun must be well up in theheavens to shine so strongly, and therefore that a good many hoursmust have passed since the smash had happened that had sent everybodyflying to the boats believing that the ship was going right down. Andmy next wonder was caused by the queer way in which the ship waslying--making me fancy at first that I was dizzy again, and my eyestricking me--with a pitch forward that gave a slope to the floor of mystate-room, of not less than twenty degrees.

For a while, in a stupid sort of way, I ruminated over these matters;and at last got hold of the simple explanation of them. Evidently, inspite of the straining of the steamer's frame in the storm, herwater-tight compartments--or some of them--had held, leaving herfloating with her broken bow well down in the water and her sterncanted up into the air. And then the farther comforting thought cameto me that if she had kept afloat for so many hours already, andseemed so steady in her new position, there was no reason why sheshould not keep on floating at least for as long as the fine weatherlasted--which gave me a chance of rescue by some passing vessel, andso brought a good deal of hope back into my heart.

I still was very weak and shaky, and how I was to get out of theprison that I was in I did not know. By daylight it was easy to seewhat held me there: which was the end of a yard, with the reef-blockhanging to it, smashed through the upper panel and caught so tight inthe splintered wood-work as to anchor the door fast. If the wits ofthe steward and of the other fellow had not been scared clean out ofthem they easily might have knocked in the lower part of the door withan axe and so opened a way out for me; but as their only notion hadbeen to cut away the spar--a tough piece of work--I could not in coolblood very greatly blame them for having given up my rescue and runfor their own lives.

These thoughts went through my head while I lay there, mostuncomfortably, on the sloping floor. Presently I managed to get up,but felt so dizzy that I had to seat myself in a hurry on the edge ofthe berth until my head got steadier. Fortunately my water-jug washalf full, and I had a good drink from it which refreshed me greatly;and then I had the farther good fortune to see some biscuit which thesteward had left on a shelf in the corner, and as I caught sight ofthem I realized that I was very hungry indeed. I ate one, along withsome more sups of water, and felt much the better for it; but lay downin my berth that I might save the strength it gave me until I shouldhave thought matters over a little and settled some line of actionin my mind.

That I was too weak to break the door down was quite certain, and theonly other thing that I could think of was cutting out the lowerpanels and so making a hole through which I could crawl. As thisthought came to me I remembered the big jack-knife that had been in mytrousers' pocket when I went overboard from the brig; and in a minuteI was on my feet--and without feeling any dizziness, this time--andgot to where my clothes were hanging on a hook, and found to my joythat my knife and all the other things which had been in my pocketshad been returned to them after the clothes had been dried. The knifewas badly rusted and I had a hard time opening it; but the rust didnot much dull it, and I seated myself upon the floor and fell toslicing away at the soft pine wood with a will. I had to rest now andthen, although I found that my strength held out better than I hadhoped for, and that put me back a little; but the wood was so softthat in not much more than half an hour I had the job finished--andthen I slipped on my trousers, and out I went through the hole on myhands and knees.

I found the cabin in utter wreck: littered everywhere with brokenglass and broken wood from the skylight, and from the smashedhanging-racks and the smashed dining-table, and with splinters fromthe mast--which had broken in falling, and along the whole length ofthe place had made a tangle of its own fragments and of the ropes andblocks which had held its sails. Of the sails themselves there wereleft only some fuzzy traces clinging to the bolt-ropes, all the resthaving been blown loose and frayed away by the storm. Oddly enough,some of the drinking-glasses still remained unbroken in one of theracks, and with them a bottle partly filled with wine--to the neck ofwhich a card was fastened bearing the name, Josť Rubio y Salinas, ofthe passenger to whom it had belonged. I took the liberty of drinkinga glass of Don Josť's wine--feeling sure that he was not coming backto claim it--and felt so much better after it that I thanked himcordially for leaving it there.

Most of the state-room doors stood open, showing within clothingtossed about and trunks with their lids turned back, and the generalconfusion in which the passengers had left things when they scrambledtogether their most precious belongings and rushed for the boats--withdeath, as they fancied, treading close upon their heels. But with whatremained in the state-rooms I did not concern myself, being desirousfirst of all to get on deck and have a look about me that I might sizeup my chances of keeping alive. That there was no companion-way upfrom the cabin puzzled me a little, for I knew nothing of the internalarrangements of steamships; but presently I found a passage leadingforward, and by that I came to the stair to the deck of which I wasin search.

Up it I went, but when I fairly got outside and saw the desperatestate of the craft that I was afloat on my heart sank. Indeed, itseemed a flying in the face of all reason that such an utter wreckshould float at all. Of the foremast nothing but the splintered stumpremained. The starboard rail, which had been to windward of it, wasgashed by chance axe-blows made in cutting away the shrouds; and as tothe port rail, twenty feet of it was gone entirely where the mast hadcome crashing down, while the side-plates below were bulged out withthe strain put upon them before the standing-rigging fastened therehad fetched away. The mizzen-mast lay aft across the cabin skylight,with its standing and running rigging making a tangle on each side ofit. The main-mast still stood, but with its top-mast broken off anddangling nearly to the deck. Two of the weather-boats remained fastto the davits, but so smashed that they looked like battered tinwash-basins, and would have floated just about as well. All the otherboats were gone: those on the weather side, as the splintered ways andbroken ropes showed, having been washed overboard; and those toleeward having been hoisted out by the tackles, which still hung fromthe davits and dipped lazily with the ship's easy motion into the sea.

All this was bad enough, but what most took the spirit out of me wasthe way that the ship was lying--her stern high up in the air, and herbow so deep in the water that the sea came up almost to her main-mastalong her sloping deck. It seemed inevitable that in another momentshe would follow her nose in the start downward that it had made andgo straight to the bottom; and each little wave, as it lapped its wayaft softly, made me fancy that the plunge had begun.

As to the outlook around me, the only comfort that I got from it wasthe fairness of the weather and the smoothness of the sea. For closeupon the water a soft haze was hanging that even to the north, out ofwhich blew a gentle wind, brought the horizon within a mile of me; anddown to leeward the haze was banked so thick that I could make outnothing beyond half a mile. And so, even though a whole fleet might bepassing near me, my chances of rescue were very small. But from thelook of the ocean I knew that no fleets were likely to be thereabouts,and that even though the haze lifted I might search long and vainlyfor sight of so much as a single sail. As far as I could see around methe water was covered thickly with gulf-weed, and with this was allsorts of desolate flotsam--planks, and parts of masts, and fragmentsof ships' timbers--lolling languidly on the soft swell that wasrunning, yet each scrap having behind it its own personal tragedy ofdeath and storm. And this mess of wreckage was so much thicker than Ihad seen when the brig was on the coast--as Bowers had called it--ofthe Sargasso Sea as to convince me that already I must be within theborders of that ocean mystery which a little while before I had beenso keen for exploring; and my fate seemed sealed to me as I realizedthat I therefore was in a region which every living ship steered clearof, and into which never any but dead ships came.

X

I TAKE A CHEERFUL VIEW OF A BAD SITUATION

When I perceived the tight fix that I was in my broken head went tothrobbing again, and my legs were so shaky under me that I had to sitdown on the deck in a hurry in order to save myself from a fall.Indeed, I was in no condition to face even an ordinary trouble, letalone an overwhelming disaster; for what with my loss of blood fromthe cut on my head, and the little food I had eaten since I got it, Iwas as weak as a cat.

Luckily I had the sense to realize that I needed the strength whichfood would give me in order to save myself from dropping off intosheer despair. And with the thought of eating there suddenly woke upin my inside a hungry feeling that surprised me by its sharpness; andinstantly put such vigor into my shaky legs that I was up on them in amoment, and off to the companion-way to begin my explorations below.And when, being come to the cabin again, I had another sup of DonJosť's wine I got quite ravenous, and felt strong enough to kick adoor in--if that should be necessary--in order to satisfy mycraving for food.

There was no need for staving in doors, for none of them was fastened;but it was some little time--because of my ignorance of thearrangement of steamships--before I could find one that had things toeat on the other side of it. Around the cabin, and along the passageleading forward, were only state-rooms; but just beyond thecompanion-way I came at last to the pantry--and beyond this again, asI found later, were the store-rooms and the galley. For the moment,however, the pantry gave me all that I wanted. In a covered box Ifound some loaves of bread, and in a big refrigerator a lot of coldvictuals that set my eyes to dancing--two or three roast fowls, partof a big joint of beef, a boiled tongue, and so on; and, what wasalmost as welcome, in another division of the refrigerator a dozen ormore bottles of beer. On the racks above were dishes and glasses, in alocker were knives and forks, and I even found hanging on a hook acorkscrew--and the quickness with which I brought these various thingstogether and made them serve my purposes was a sight to see!

When I had eaten nearly a whole fowl, and had drunk a bottle of beerwith it, I felt like another man; and then, pursuing my investigationsmore leisurely, I found in one of the lockers--which I took theliberty of prying open with a big carving-knife--four or live boxesof capital cigars. In the same locker was a package of safety-matches,and in a moment I was puffing away with such satisfaction that Ifairly grew light-hearted--so great is the comfort that comes to a manwith good smoking on top of a hearty meal. All sorts of bright fanciescame to me: of making one of the battered boats serviceable again andgetting off in it, of a ship blown out of her course coming to myrescue, of a strong southerly wind that would carry the hulk of thepoor old _Hurst Castle_ back again into the inhabited parts of thesea. And with these thoughts cheering me I set myself to work to findout just what I had in the way of provisions aboard my shattered craft.

I did not have to search far nor long to satisfy myself that I had abigger stock of food by me than I could eat in a dozen years. Forwardof the galley were the store-rooms: a cold-room, with a plenty of icestill in it, in which was hanging a great quantity of fresh meat; awine-room, very well stocked and containing also some cases of tobaccoand cigars; and in the other rooms was stuff enough to fit up a biggrocery shop on shore--hams and bacon and potted meats, and a greatvariety of vegetables in tins, and all sorts of sweets and sauces andtable-delicacies in tins and in glass. Indeed, although I was full tothe chin with the meal that I had just eaten, my mouth fairly wateredat sight of all these good things. In the bakery I found only a loafor two of bread, and this--as it was lying on the floor--I supposemust have been dropped in the scramble while the boats were beingprovisioned; but in the baker's store-room were a good many cases offine biscuit, and more than twenty barrels of flour. In addition toall this, I did not doubt that somewhere on board was an equally largestore of provisions for the use of the crew; but with that I did notbother myself, being satisfied to fare as a cabin-passenger on thegood things which I had found. Finally, two of the big water-tanksstill were full--the others, as I inferred from the cocks being open,having been emptied for the supply of the boats; and as areserve--leaving rain out of the question--I had the ice to fall backupon, of which there was so great a quantity that it alone would lastme for a long while. In a word, so far as eating and drinking wereconcerned, I was as well off as a man could be anywhere--having by menot only all the necessaries of life but most of its luxuries as well.

Finding all these good things cheered me and put heart in me in muchthe same way that I was cheered and heartened by finding my floatingmast after Captain Luke and the mate chucked me overboard. Again I hadthe certainty that death for a while could not get a chance at me; andthis second reprieve was of a more promising sort than that which mymast had given me in the open sea. On board the steamer, or what wasleft of her, I was sure of being in positive comfort so long as shefloated; and my good spirits made me so sanguine that I was confidentshe would keep on floating until I struck out some plan by which Icould get safe away from her, or until rescue came to me by some luckyturn of chance. And so, having completed my tour of inspection, and mygeneral inventory of the property to which by right of survival I hadfallen heir, I went on deck again in a very hopeful mood.

Even the utter wreck and confusion into which the steamer had fallen,when I got to the deck and saw it again, did not crush the hope out ofme as it did when I came upon it--being then weak and famished--forthe first time. I even found a cause for greater hopefulness inobserving that the water-line still stood, as it had stood an hour andmore earlier, a little forward of the main-mast; for that showed thatthe water-tight compartments were holding, and that the hulk was in noimmediate danger of going down. It did seem, to be sure, that the hazehad grown a little thicker, and that the weed and wreckage around thesteamer were thicker too; and I was convinced that my hulk wasmoving--or that the flotsam about it was moving--by seeing a brokenboat floating bottom upward that I was sure was not in sight when Iwent below. But I argued with myself cheerfully that the thickeningof the haze might be due to a wind coming down on me that would blowit clean away; and that a small thing like an empty boat drifting downfrom windward proved that the _Hurst Castle_ herself was movingsouthward very slowly, or perhaps was not moving at all. And so, stillin good spirits, I set myself to looking carefully for something thatwould float me, in case I decided to abandon the hulk and make a dashfor it--on the chance of falling in with a passing vessel--out overthe open sea.

But when I had made the round of the deck--at least of the part of itthat was out of water--I had to admit that getting away from thesteamer was a sheer impossibility, unless I might manage it bycobbling together some sort of a raft. It had been all very well forme to fancy, while I was being cheered with chicken and beer andtobacco down in the pantry, that I could make one of the batteredboats sea-worthy; but my round of the deck showed me that with all mytraining in mechanics I never could make one of them float again--forthe sea had wrenched and hammered them until they were no better thanso much old iron. The raft, certainly, was a possibility. Spars thatwould serve for its body were lying around in plenty, and with thedoors from the rooms below I could deck it over so as to make it bothsolid and dry; and somewhere aboard the ship, no doubt, werecarpenter's tools--though, most likely, they were down under waterforward and could be come at only by diving for them. Still, the raftwas a possibility; and so was comforting to think about as giving meanother reprieve from drowning in case the water-tight compartmentsbroke down--and as that break might come at any moment, and as the jobwould take me two days at the shortest, I realized that I could notset about it too soon.

XI

MY GOOD SPIRITS ARE WRUNG OUT OF ME

But the other chance which I had thought of, that my hulk might beblown clear of the Sargasso Sea and back into the track of tradeagain, still was to be reckoned with; and to know how that chance wasworking it was necessary that I should find out my exact position onthe ocean, and then check off the changes in it by fresh observationstaken from day to day. And as I saw that the sun was close upon themeridian, and no time to waste if I wanted to secure my firstnoon-sight, I put off beginning my carpentering until I should havehunted for the ship's instruments and got the latitude and longitudethat would give me my departure on my drifting voyage.

This was so simple a piece of work that I anticipated no difficulty inexecuting it. While the low-lying haze narrowed my horizon it did notsufficiently obscure the sun to interfere with sight-taking; I couldcount upon finding the chronometers still going, they being made torun for fifty-six hours and the ship having been abandoned only thenight before; and where I found the chronometers I felt sure that Ishould find also a sextant and a chart. But when I went at thiseasy-looking task I was brought up with a round turn: there were nochronometers, there was no sextant, there was no chart of the NorthAtlantic--there was not even a compass left on board!

It took me some little time to arrive at a certainty in this series ofnegatives. I fancied--because it had been that way aboard the _GoldenHind_--that the captain's room would be one of those opening off fromthe cabin, and so began my search for it in that quarter. But when Ihad made the round of all the state-rooms I was satisfied that theyhad been occupied only by passengers. The single timepiece that Ifound--for the clock in the cabin had been smashed when themizzen-mast came down--was a fine gold watch lying in one of theberths partly under the pillow, where its owner must have left it inhis hurry to get to the boats. It still was going, and I slipped itinto my pocket--feeling that a thing with even that much of life in itwould be a comfort to me; but the hour that it gave was a quarter pasteleven (it having been set to the ship's time the day before, Isuppose) and therefore was of no use to me as a basis forsight-taking.

Having exhausted the possibilities of the cabin I concluded that thecaptain's quarters must have been forward, and so shifted my searchto the forward deck-house; and as I found a blue uniform coat and asuit of oil-skins in the first room that I entered I was sure that ina general way I was on the right track. But in none of these rooms didI find what I was looking for--though I did find in one of them, andgreatly to my satisfaction, a chest of carpenter's tools and a big boxof nails. The nails must have been there by pure accident, but thetools probably were the carpenters private kit; and as in the courseof my farther search I did not come across the ship'scarpenter-shop--which no doubt was under water forward--I felt thatthis chance supply of what I needed for my raft-building was a verylucky thing for me indeed.

The upper story of the deck-house still remained to be investigated;and when, by the steps leading to the steamer's bridge, I got up thereand entered a little room behind the wheel-house, I was pretty surethat at last I had found the place where what I wanted ought to be.The part forward of the doors on each side of this room--a good thirdof it--was filled by a chart-locker having a dozen or more wideshallow drawers; and the flat top of the locker showed at its fourcorners the prickings of thumb-tacks which had held the charts openthere, and four tacks still were in place with scraps of thick whitepaper under them--as though some one in too great a hurry to loosenit properly had ripped the chart away.

This would be, of course, the chart actually in use when the steamergot into trouble, and therefore the one that I needed. As it was gone,I opened the drawers of the locker and looked through them in searchof a duplicate; or of anything--even a wind-chart or a current-chartwould have answered--that would serve my turn. But while there werecharts in plenty of West Indian and of English waters, and a setcovering the German Ocean, not a chart of any sort relating to theNorth Atlantic did I find. Neither were there chronometers nor anynautical instruments in the room. In one corner was a strongly madecloset in which they may have been kept; but of this the door stoodopen and the shelves were bare. Even a barometer which had hung nearthe closet had been wrenched away, as I could tell by the broken brassgimbals still fast to the brass supports; but this was a matter of noimportance, since I had noticed another in good order in the cabin--tosay nothing of the fact that my powerlessness to make any provisionagainst bad weather made me indifferent to warnings of coming storms.And then, when I continued my search in the wheel-house, though notvery hopefully, all that I discovered there was that the binnacle wasempty and that the compass was gone too. In a word, there wasabsolutely nothing on board the hulk that would enable me to fix myposition on the surface of the ocean, or that would guide me should Itry the pretty hopeless experiment of going cruising on a raft.

This fact being settled--and hindsight being clearer than foresight--Ihad no difficulty in accounting for it. In order to lay a course andto keep it, the people in the boats would need precisely the thingswhich had been carried off; and as each boat no doubt had beenfurnished so that in case of separation it could make its way alone, aclean sweep had been made of all the North Atlantic charts and of allthe nautical instruments that the steamer had on board. It was to thecredit of the captain that he had kept his wits so well abouthim--seeing to it, in the sudden skurry for the boats, that theultimate as well as the immediate safety of his people was providedfor--but when I found out, and fairly realized, what his coolness hadcost me I fell off once more from good spirits into gloom.

Being left that way all at loose ends as to my reckoning, with nomeans of finding out where I was nor whether my position changed forthe better from day to day, the hopes that I had been building ofdrifting northward and so falling in with a passing vessel fell downin a bunch and left me miserable. I see now, though I did not see itthen, that they went quite as unreasonably as they came. In thatregion of calms--for I was fairly within the horse-latitudes--the onlybit of wind that I was likely to encounter was an eddy from thenortheast trades that would set me still farther to the southward; andthe only other moving impulse acting upon my hulk--at least while fairweather lasted--would be the slow eddy setting in from the Gulf Streamand moving me in the same direction. In the case of a storm coming upfrom the south, and so giving me the push northward that I was soeager for, the chances were a thousand to one that my hulk would go tothe bottom long before I could get to a part of the ocean where shipswere likely to be. And as to navigating a raft through that tangle ofweed, already thick enough around me to check the way of a sharplybuilt boat, the notion was so absurd that only a man in my desperatefix would even have thought about it.

But had there been a Job's comforter at hand to put these blackthoughts into my head they would not have helped me nor harmed memuch. My whole heart had been set on getting my sights, and filledwith the inconsequent hope that in getting them I somehow would bebettering my chances of coming out safe at last; and so it seemed tome when I could not get them--and in this, though the sight-taking hadnothing to do with it, there was reason in plenty--that alllikelihood of my being rescued had slipped away.

I had come out from the wheel-house and was standing on the steamer'sbridge--which rose right out of the water so that I looked down fromit directly on the weed-laden sea. As far as my sight would carrythrough the soft golden haze I saw only weed-covered water, brokenhere and there by a bit of wreckage or by a little open space on whichthe pale sunshine gleamed. A very gentle swell was running, giving tothe ocean the look of some strange sort of meadow with tall grassswaying evenly in an easy wind. The broken boat had moved a good dealand already was well to the south of me; showing me that there wasmotion in that apparent stillness, and compelling me to believe thatmy hulk--though less rapidly than the boat--was moving southward too.And what that meant for me I knew. The fair weather might continuealmost indefinitely. Days and weeks, even months, might pass, and Istill might live on there in bodily safety; but so far as the worldwas concerned I was dead already--being fairly caught in the sloweddying current which was carrying my hulk steadily and hopelesslyinto the dense wreck-filled centre of the Sargasso Sea.

XII

I HAVE A FEVER AND SEE VISIONS

Because I had felt hungry and thirsty, and the cold chicken and beerhad tasted good, I had eaten and drunk a great deal more heartily thanwas wholesome for me--being so weakened by loss of blood, and by thestrain put upon me by the danger that I had passed through, and byliving only on slops and some scraps of biscuit since my rescue, thatmy insides were in no condition to deal with such a lot of strongfood. And then, within an hour after I so unwisely had stuffed myself,came the blow--in itself hard enough to upset a strong digestion ingood working order--of discovering that I could do nothing to savemyself, and that my hulk was drifting steadily deeper and deeper intothat ocean mystery out of which no man ever yet had come alive.

The first sign that I had that something was going wrong with me was aswimming in my head--so sudden and so violent that I lurched forwardand was close to pitching over the rail of the bridge into the sea.For a moment I fancied that the ship had taken a quick plunge; andthen a sick feeling in my own stomach, and a blurring of my eyes thatmade everything seem misty and shadowy, settled for me the fact thatit was I who was reeling about and that the ship was still--and I hadsense enough to lie down at full length on the bridge, between thewheel-house and the rail, where I was safe against rolling off. Andthen the shadows about me got deeper and blacker, and a horrible sense